Rachna says

I was reading the post I wrote to myself on my 40th birthday a decade ago. And, it made me smile. The enthusiastic and passionate me is coming through so well.

Well, in the decade that has gone by, so many milestones have been realised and challenges faced and dealt with. At 50, I feel very grateful for my life. I am mom to two adult sons now! Having raised two fantastic young men and Coco is the proudest of my achievements as a mom and a woman.

Good, bad or ugly, I have lived life on my terms, yet I am pliable when circumstances and people close to me require it. My older son flew the nest and has been living away from home for 4 years now. So, I am half the empty nester just now.

The younger boy is on the cusp of college, and I got to spend loads of time turning my full parenting glare on him in the last four years. At least, his gripe of “Sid is your favourite” has gone away. 🙂 But seriously, it has been a wonderfully exasperating experience.

A mom in perimenopause and a teenage son are possibly not the best combination to have around. Hormones on both ends bring forth a pretty volatile cocktail of emotion, but we have managed to navigate the circumstances. When all else fails, I use the mom card. 🙂

I have got to see a side of him that I didn’t see before. Seen him mature when he was thrust into spotlight after his older brother left home. Then Coco passed. Gautam has handled some extenuating circumstances with loads of courage, and I am really proud of him.

The husband and I are navigating spending more time with each other. It sort of feels strange yet nice. Parenting takes up your entire existence and leaves little time for much else. Your vacation schedules revolve around the kids’ holidays. Your work schedules have to carefully worked around kids. Pretty much everything revolves around them and their future.

I am wondering how weird it will be when I won’t have to wake up early to pack tiffin boxes for the boys. One thing I am immensely looking forward to is menopause and beyond. Perimenopause has caused me the maximum pain and anxiety in the last decade. I am patiently waiting to be done with!

On the brighter side, I am still gung ho and open to learning. My content business is in good shape, and I continue to try and pivot the turbulent landscape of SEO upheavals that Google has hit content creators with. Who knows where the journey will take us? But, I don’t go down without a fight.

Also, the crux is that I truly enjoy making content and marketing it and monetizing it. Work keep me energized and grounded, if it makes any sense.

I hope to continue doing my professional work for as long as I can. Who knows, maybe I will pursue a new hobby, like learning a form of dance or my long cherished dream of learning Hindustani Classical music.

I saw the entire growth and decline of blogging as it panned out. I started my personal blog, this one in 2008. It was such a wonderful time. We made friends from all over the world and actually cared about each other. We all fell to the lure of monetization and brand collaborations and made quite some money too, but the spirit of wanton blogging for the sake of writing was compromised.

Then the gaze moved away from the written word, and social media platforms started taking over. People making 1 minute videos or writing 3 paragraphs on Facebook started calling themselves bloggers. So many of us stopped writing. I pivoted to food blogging in early 2010s, and that set rolling my food content business.

As the kids were in their teens then, I stopped writing here on my parenting blog. Now, I am trying to write with no strings attached. Just because I like writing. I do hope some of my old blogging friends come and read. If not, that’s fine too. 🙂

So, well there’s some maturity there at 50 for you. 🙂 Nothing mopey this time. Just take life as it comes. I just want to stay in good health and be fit. It is kind of an obsession with me. I hope in a good way.